At the end of October, food prices maintained an upward trend; ISET’s Retail FPI gained 2.6% m/m (compared to the last week of September). On an annual basis (compared to October 2016), we recorded a significant 11.3% increase in food prices. According to data from the last two weeks of October, the biggest increase in price was recorded for tomatoes (99%), for which the price almost doubled due to seasonality.
Telavi, the former capital of the Kingdom of Kakheti, is a beautiful town with spectacular views of the Alazani Valley and Caucasian mountains. In the 18th century, King Erekle II reigned from Telavi. The palace can still be seen, and the statue of King Erekle stands proudly in the middle of the city's town square. More importantly for the city dwellers, Telavi is the capital of Georgia’s traditional winemaking.
On October 20, members of the ISET community attended a guest lecture on international taxation from Ms. Femke van der Zeijden from PricewaterhouseCoopers Netherlands’ office. Ms. Zeijdenhas introduced issues of international taxation from a legal perspective. This was particularly useful and interesting for the audience as it primarily consisted of economists, for whom the legal aspects and problems of different taxation policies are not well known.
ISET continues to challenge its BA students to think about economics and apply knowledge gained during their studies in everyday life. On October 19, 2017, Eric Livny, President of ISET and BA Program Director, conducted a very intriguing discussion on how to start a business in Georgia and what factors one has to initially take into account.
Stanford University has recently started using a new heat recovery system. A large research campus such as Stanford University, requires a substantial amount of energy to operate, resulting in a significant amount of Greenhouse Gas emissions and high operating costs, which makes the management of resources a priority.